Meat cutting tasks analysis using 3D instrumented knife and motion capture

Abstract

This article presents a complete experimental setup and pipeline designed to analyze kinematics and dynamics of meat cutting tasks in terms of musculoskeletal disorder appearance risk. An instrumented knife records the cutting force in 3D. A motion capture system assesses trunk and arm motion in 3D. Finally, the AnyBody software is used to run an inverse dynamics analysis on the recorded motions to obtain muscle forces. At last, EMG records are set up on most of relevant superficial muscles of the shoulder-neck area in order to validate the results. Sample results are proposed for standard workspace parameters, showing the relevance of the information for assessing the risk of developing work-related musculo-skeletal disorders. © 2011 Springer-Verlag.